The end of the school year 3/4: Installation part 2

My first attempt at setting up this piece was a disaster, it was a windy morning and by the time I got the class there to look at it it was just a bunch of cigarette butts scattered in the courtyard. This time I soaked them in a bucket of water all night so they would not blow away but even still the piece had to be smaller than I had intended because halfway through the bucket the butts I had put down first were drying out and starting to blow away. Even still I'm happy with the piece. It was actually rather pretty while it was set up. Maybe next time I shall soak them in oil...

Love and coffee,
~Anne

Two Installations

"Free Campus"
One of the first pieces of the semester was a public intervention. I went all around campus collecting cigarette butts in a plastic bucket. The morning of the critique I showed up very early and laid the butts out in a pattern on the ground but it was windy and they immediately started blowing away and rolling. I had to clump them together to protect them from the wind, which made the pattern simpler, clunkier. Even with this precaution, by the time we got there for critique this was all that remained:
So I will soon be re-doing that piece and I am thinking I will soak the butts so they are wet and drippy when I lay them down, that way they will have trouble blowing away.

"Unreported"
We also have a project that involves a closet. Each week one of us has the key to the closet and we get to make a project in that space, we can do whatever we like, and initially I had intended to get a pole and hand men's suits and put some shoes in there so it would be... a closet :) I thought it was funny but I decided to do something a little more serious. What I came up with:Got ruined a little bit by the fact that I could not find enough chalk to complete it the way I wanted. All the interior walls are painted with chalkboard paint and I crushed chalk to a powder and mixed in some sport chalk (also powder) to cover the floor with. There still wasn't enough chalk so I supplemented with baby powder, which turned out to be a huge mistake because the smell was so strong. Anyway I locked myself in the closet and threw myself against the walls and fell into the powder and all in all it was okay but if I could do the project again I know I could make it far more successful.

Love and coffee,
~Anne